Consistancy
by redex
Summary: YamaTaka. Kiss like it's nobody's business, and living through pain.


The kisses were hot and languid, like a humid summer's day, not unfamiliar, but surprising in their setting. 

"Takaiwa...!" he choked out, hands gripping shoulders in a weak attempt to keep things under control. Takaiwa had gone wild in these past few years, as if the hormones of puberty had addled his brain. He wasn't bad in the traditional sense of the word; he was like a wild flower garden: eclectic. "Someone could walk in any second!"

"But you look so sexy in that apron," and Takaiwa took advantage of the moment it took Yamazaki to blush to kiss him again. 

"Besides, I put the 'Closed' sign up."

And he drifted off, fingers hooked in the newly proclaimed "sexy apron" and dragged Yamazaki along behind him as he spotted a new running jacket despite protest.

"Takaiwa, I'm going to loose my job and I only just started working here," Yamazaki said in response to a "does this color look good on me?"

He was exasperated, but a happy sort of exasperated. This store was never especially busy, so he was the only one there most of the day. Talaiwa was a pleasent respite to a long shift. 

His metal knee banged against a shelf as he was dragged towards the counter, and the echoing noise made takaiwa fall silent. Looking down bitterly at the metal framework and his leg trapped inside, he stepped resolutely around the shelf and not looking at Takaiwa, slipped behind the counter.

"Are you going to buy that?" he asked stonily, glaring down at the carefully labeled keys. He was so resolutely inot/i thinking about his own uselessness that he didn't notice him moving until the arms were around his waist and messy hair was pressed against his cheek. He heard a soft "don't worry about it" that may or may not have been said out loud before Takaiwa released him, grinning hard.

"I can't afford this, are you crazy?"

He was shaking with the need to lash out at someone, but Takaiwa wasn't the one he wanted to pound into the ground - it was himself. He didn't realize he had slipped into another revine until Takaiwa reached over the counter and slapped his cheek lightly.

"Hey," he said simply, smile wavering as his hand lingered on Yamazaki's cheek, the same as his eyes. It was a long moment.

When they stood at the door and Yamazaki flipped the hanging sign back to 'Open', Takaiwa tugged at his apron once again, smiling.

"Hey Yama, I'm going to dye my hair blonde, what do you think?"

And he opened his mouth to say how unstylish and ugly it looked on most people before stopping himself.

"Yeah," he said gently, leaning in close enough for their noses to touch. "It would look good on you."

Their lips brushed together drying only a little this time before they split apart, Takaiwa waving over his shoulder as he dissapeared down the street.

When he turned around and was faced with the flourescent buzz up an empty room he sighed, knee creaking as he shifted his weight, moving to tidy up all the merchandize Takaiwa had left strewn around. He should have asked Takaiwa to give him a call when he was done with his hair so they could go out and celebrate. It was a long tim since Yamazaki had seen his former basketball friends, as if he the metal on his knee was a kind of ball and chain, keeping him locked into one route. All except Takaiwa had given up on him. 

It was sad to think about how grateful Takaiwa made him feel. It was that pathetic. Embarressing.

---

The call came a few days later, on the home phone, shouted over children and toys and televisions. 

"Hey, hey, Yama, let's go get ice cream at the beach, my treat!"

When his parents tried to give him money to take with him he gave it back, already having taken some of his own saving to pay for his own cone. He jogged half the way to their meeting spot, arriving breathless and in pain. The ice cream helped, as did a long sit on the boardwalk, but Takaiwa's hair was the most distracting from the pain.

It was strange after being used to seeing it faded almost to brown for so long. He hadn't believed him, that he would do it so white.

It was bright, like the sun. Like Takaiwa's smile.

---

By now his hair was faded, although he still dyed it regularly. The metal and hard plastic had given way to a soft coushin and the bitterness had dulled to a mostly bad memory. Takaiwa had likewise faded, slowing down although he was no less odd when you got down to it, still able to analyze the game and the people who played it like no one else.

They still saw each other in and around basketball practices and matches. Takaiwa still visited the Red Barns store when it was Yamazaki's shift and faled to take anything away from it except for a few kisses.

The Yamazaki family loved Takaiwa and often invited him to dinner while he waited for his Yama to come back from an afternoon practice. there was scarcely room at the table. He still invited Yamazaki on random dates to anywhere he coudl think of, and even if those dates started with a few girls, they enevitably ended with just the two of them.

The kisses and the basketball were always the same. 


End file.
